OD Morphing: Balancing Simplicity with Faithfulness for OD Bundling

Area of Science:

• Data Visualization
• Computational Geometry
• Network Analysis

Background:

• Origin-Destination (OD) bundling is valuable for identifying traffic patterns.
• Current OD bundling methods can misrepresent actual travel trajectories, hindering accurate interpretation.
• There is a need for techniques that balance visual simplicity with geographical faithfulness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce OD Morphing, an interactive technique for origin-destination bundling.
• To improve the geographical faithfulness of OD bundles to actual trajectories.
• To maintain visual simplicity for understanding OD patterns.

Main Methods:

• OD Morphing iteratively identifies critical waypoints using a min-cut algorithm.
• A smooth morphing method transitions OD bundles through these identified waypoints.
• The technique is extended to support interactive bundling at interaction speeds for dynamic sensemaking.

Main Results:

• OD Morphing enhances geographical faithfulness while preserving visual simplicity.
• Novel metrics for faithfulness and simplicity were introduced to evaluate the trade-off.
• The method was successfully demonstrated on real-world taxi and flight trajectory datasets.

Conclusions:

• OD Morphing offers a significant improvement over traditional OD bundling methods.
• The interactive nature allows users to explore the faithfulness-simplicity trade-off effectively.
• This technique aids in more accurate interpretation of complex movement patterns.